We have gathered to celebrate something strange and often poorly understood – the resurrection is a mystery. It is literally impossible to take it literally because the Gospels disagree on the details. The resurrected Jesus is solid enough to eat fish by the side of the lake, yet ethereal enough to appear from nowhere in a locked room and mysteriously vanish.

But to totally reject the resurrection leaves us with the baffling mystery of what caused the mostly illiterate scattered followers of a humiliated and executed leader to find heart again and be so full of energy and new life that they turned the world upside down.

The resurrection is the story of how death is followed by new life – whatever the realities of first century Palestine, it’s a meditation on the human condition.

Good Friday shows how bad the world can get: a good and kind and generous and inspiring and loving man, the brightest and best humanity can be, is executed in a barbaric way. And then on Easter day we are given new hope.

The broken body of Jesus and his blood spilled by his Roman executioners has become a symbol of life and hope and the centre of the meal that has united Christians for millennia.

The act of Jesus’ judicial murder which scattered his disciples has become the very symbol of his life – the cross the most instantly recognisable emblem of our faith.

Easter does not remove the suffering of Good Friday.

Resurrection is not the denial of death.

Resurrection is what allows us to look at all the horrors of the world, the politically motivated cuts to the health service, the horrific plane crashes, the rise of militant fundamentalists and dictators and warmongers… …we look squarely into the horrors of the world and say – “we will not give you the last word. We do not believe that this is what defines humanity.”

In the words of Gandhi “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it – always.”

This year I read a fascinating book, one which I highly recommend – its “The Better Angels of our Nature” by Stephen Pinker.

It’s a huge book that goes into huge detail and presents mountains of statistical data and analysis to prove (I think beyond doubt) that violence has been in decline over millennia and that the present is probably the most peaceful time in the history of the human species. The decline in violence is not a small change, it is enormous! The evidence is seen in the reduction in military conflict, in the decline in murder, the comparative rarity of genocide, the limits paced on torture and outcry it causes whereas it was once commonplace, the increasingly civilised criminal justice system, and the improvement in the treatment of children, LGBT folks, animals and racial and ethnic minorities. He stresses that “The decline, to be sure, has not been smooth; it has not brought violence down to zero; and it is not guaranteed to continue.”

If you disagree and think that the past was better and civilisation was better in the past think about bodies found in peat bogs and permafrost in eastern Europe – from before the dawn of civilisation – the majority of them reveal that they died violent deaths. A thousand years ago there were a lot more natural deaths, but still a lot of violent deaths,

You only need a History GCSE to realise that five hundred years ago it had improved further and one hundred years further still. Since the Second World War there has been a steep decline in all-out war between the nations.

Gandhi’s words are not just wishful thinking, they are fact: “all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it – always.”

But progress does not come in an endless easy cycle of improvement, it comes in a painful struggle with death and resurrection followed by death and resurrection followed by death and resurrection.

Gandhi saw his dictators topple, but he paid for it with his life.

Death and resurrection. Christ showed us the way, and it is the only way.

Easter is not a historic event that we gather to commemorate, it is a present reality that we are invited to take part in. We are invited to join the struggle for a better world, to strive for justice and create peace, to build the Kingdom to give hope…

I’m going to disturb our quiet reflective mood with a very short Quiz. I spent half an hour on YouTube looking at the most popular Christmas television adverts of 2013, and if I give you the tag-line I wonder if you can give me the product or store that used it in its advertising this year:

Who suggested we “Give someone a Christmas they’ll never forget”

(John Lewis – I’ll come back to this campaign…)

Who said “Believe in Magic and Sparkle!”

(M&S)

“The moments that make Christmas Special brought to you by _ _ _ _ _ _ _”

(Sainsbury’s offered a selection on home videos of family Christmastimes)

The taste that unites

(KFC – I hadn’t seen this advert on television, but it is very funny!)

There’s nothing better than Christmas

(Tesco – showing someone go from youth to old age fortified by Tesco-bought Christmas dinners!)

“This Christmas lets make the people that make us feel good, feel good”

(Boots showed a yoof in a hoodie acting as a modern Santa with Boots-bought goodies)

Whatever you wish for this Christmas, make it fabulous with _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

(Debenhams trying to look classy)

Go on… it’s Christmas

(Morrisons – with Ant urging Dec to eat a living Gingerbread Man)

With their “Sorry I spent it on myself” collection which store had the tag line “I little something for them; a bigger something for you.”

(Harvey Nichols)

Some of you may be bracing yourself for an anti-consumerist diatribe now. “He’s going to rant about the irrelevance and triviality and kitsch that dominates our modern celebration of Christmas.”

It’s right that I passionately believe the truth expressed in that work of genius ‘The Grinch who stole Christmas’ – the Grinch, who hates Christmas decides to destroy it by dressing up as Santa and breaking into every house in Whoville on Christmas Eve to steal all the presents, decorations and food. Then he stands on the hill overlooking Whoville to look down on his work and hear the howls and cried on Christmas morning.

But then:

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,Was singing! Without any presents at all!He HADN’T stopped Christmas from coming!IT CAME!Somehow or other, it came just the same! And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?It came without ribbons! It came without tags!“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”

And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

So I’m just going to take it as read that we all believe Christmas is more than presents (otherwise we wouldn’t be in Church at midnight!)

But I was interested by the theme of the adverts this year: There were clearly divided into two categories – firstly ‘family’ was explored by several including KFC, Tesco, and Sainsbury’s. Christmas is often a time to get together with the people we love, but if that is now we define the season it becomes a very exclusive celebration.

Wendy Cope wrote the following short Christmas Poem, entitled ‘A Christmas Poem’

At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle,The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingleAnd happy families go to church and cheerily they mingleAnd the whole business is unbelievably dreadful, if you’re single.

I don’t want to criticise families getting together, but I want Christmas to include the single and the lonely and the bereaved and those whose family lives are complicated or unhappy.

So I turn to the other major theme in this year’s Christmas adverts: fairy tales! Morrisons enlisted the Gingerbread Man (and Ant and Deck); Baileys went for a sexy Nutcracker theme; M&S Christmas Advert borrowed from Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Aladdin and the Wizard of Oz, and was the second most viewed advert on YouTube. However, the most popular advert online (by quite some way) was John Lewis’ “The Bear and the Hare:”

“There once was an animal who had never seen Christmas” it begins, and ends with the Hare giving the Bear an alarm clock to wake him up in the middle of his hibernation so that he can enjoy his first ever Christmas. If you watch the advert on YouTube (as I did when I was preparing this sermon) it ends with the message “Click here to continue the story” so I thought I’d see what happen next. I wondered what adventures they might get up to next – the bear awake for the first time in the midwinter… Did they meet a funny Robin Redbreast, go ice-skating on a frozen lake, visit Father Christmas…? I clicked on the link full of expectation: But, as the more cynical (or perhaps realistic) of you may have realised, what actually happens next is John Lewis’ online store. The adventure ‘continues’ by me buying lots of stuff.

But the fairy tale is sweet. There is something in this season that makes us want to believe in magic.

As a species we are hungry for the mysterious – earlier this month my son and I were queuing up to see “The Hobbit, Part 2: The Desolation of Smaug” – with elves and Dragons and Wizards. Harry Potter was a phenomenal success in book and movie format. We also explore the fantastical in modern myths, like Spiderman, Superman and the Avengers, and myths are mixed with science in Star Wars, Star Trek, and my personal favourite – Doctor Who!

But at the same time as we enjoy ever more extraordinary tales religion is viewed with increasing cynicism:

The same people who thrilled to the tale of Bilbo Baggins and his magic ring object to the story of a Virgin giving birth or Wise Men telling the future by star gazing. It’s strange that we are perfectly happy to be entertained by stories of Hobbits or Wizarding Schools, Jedi or Daleks but something about Jesus makes us uneasy.

The story of Jesus Birth was written almost two thousand years ago, describing events that happened just over two thousand years ago, in a world where demonic possession and miraculous healings were commonplace, a world where the Roman Emperor was seen as a god-in-human-form.

These stories of angels, Magi and stars that stop over stables and are profound stories which contain a truth more profound than history.

There are some stories so profound that they can only be expressed in a story – ‘second chances are always possible’ is true, but those words do reach the deepest aspects of this truth in the way the Parable of Prodigal Son manages; ‘we are all one human family’ is true, but the Parable of the Good Samaritan goes deeper and can challenge and inspire us in more profound ways.

The stories of Jesus’ birth are puzzles to us, if we try to work out the history behind the piously written myth and legend we will find a fascinating academic study. However, trying to discover the history behind the story is in danger of missing the point.

The point is that God cares about what happens here on earth. That a young couple living in poverty, surrounded by scandal, giving birth in squalor are of infinite value to God.

The message of this story is that God or the deepest Reality is not about some supernatural Heaven, removed from human experience; God, the deepest and profoundest Reality is found in human experience.

And that baby grew up to teach that every human being – the poor and the outcast, rich and poor alike, and you and I, are of infinite value to God.

And that we live by these teachings our lives can be transformed.

Christmas is only the starting place, it’s the advert for Christianity the rest of the year.

Perhaps “There is nothing better than Christmas,” a time to “Believe in Magic and Sparkle!” we should let the story take root in our lives “Go on… it’s Christmas!”

Today is the first Inclusive Church Sunday. As a Church we are very involved in Inclusive Church and are very committed to its cause. However, as as a white married man I have been asked by several people (including more than one Bishop!) why this maters to me. So I hope you will forgive my self indulgence of explaining why it matters.

My story in brief: I was brought up as a Baptist in Northern Ireland. I was a Protestant, lived in a Protestant area, I went to a Protestant school. In the Protestant world the most obvious form of exclusion was of Roman Catholics. (In Northern Ireland both communities feel like the persecuted minority: Catholics are the minority in Northern Ireland, Protestants the minority in Ireland as a whole. Seeing a first had the result of fear and suspicion was how I grew up…) So I started my spiritual journey as a Baptist, then I left the church for a while, before getting involved in a Pentecostal Church. The forms of exclusion at work here were obvious: people who smoked, drank, used bad language or slept around were excluded… (I must also add that women were excluded from from leadership, as were the divorced, gay men and lesbians… but remember I was a teenager… so it was the drinking and sleeping around that attracted my attention…)I never understood Christian teetotalism – after all Jesus turned water into wine, and the one act of worship Jesus gave us involves sharing wine… I also never understood swearing – why one word for sex or genitalia is allowed and one is not… I also read the Bible a lot at this time and I found that the bible was concerned with justice, with usury and gluttony, and none of these seemed to get a mention…Then while I dithered about what I wanted to do with my life I spent year working for Scripture Union in Zimbabwe. Here I encountered issues of race – I was the minority (but also the uber-privileged). I lived in a huge township called Mkobo, just outside Gweru, where I was the only white person – people were amazingly friendly, but I was always a novelty… I couldn’t have a single conversation for more than two minutes without the subject of how different I was coming in to it…Then I studied theology at Kings College London. I hadn’t thought much about issues of sexuality up to this point, but I ended up sharing a house with several people, including three gay men, two of whom were called to the ordained ministry, and I saw their difficulties as they approached a homophobic institution.Yet at this time I became an Anglican. I became an Anglican because of the diversity of the Anglican Church. It contains both Protestant and Catholic spirituality, it contains both liberal and conservative theology, it contains different races, different social classes, and many other forms of difference…

I felt that the Church of England had been conservative on issues of gender politics and sexuality, but so had society as a whole, and like society as a whole the Church was changing.

But then came the scandal of a good and holy man called Jeffrey John being forced to resign as Bishop of Reading because of his sexuality.

As a result Inclusive Church was born on 11th August 2003 at St Mary’s Putney, at a Eucharist attended by over 400 people.

An on-line Petition was set up requesting assent to the following Declaration of Belief:

“We affirm that the Church’s mission, in obedience to Holy Scripture, is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in every generation.We acknowledge that this is Good News for people regardless of their sex, race or sexual orientation.We believe that, in order to strengthen the Gospel’s proclamation of justice to the world, and for the greater glory of God, the Church’s own common life must be justly ordered.To that end, we call on our Church to live out the promise of the Gospel; to celebrate the diverse gifts of all members of the body of Christ; and in the ordering of our common life to open the ministries of deacon, priest and bishop to those so called to serve by God, regardless of their sex, race or sexual orientation”

I believe that “being inclusive” has nothing whatsoever to do with being ‘politically correct’ or ‘feminist’ or ‘left wing’ – it has everything to do with living out the Gospel. There shouldn’t have to be an organisation called “inclusive church” because to be the church should necessarily mean we are inclusive.

As this morning’s Gospel Reading made clear, Jesus whole ministry is about including the outcast, and it’s a theme throughout Jesus’ ministry:

Jesus speaks to woman as equals

He accepts Zachaeus and Matthew the collaberating tax collectors

He accepts Simon the revolutionary zealot

He invites the rough, uneducated fisherman to follow

He accepts and befriends prostitutes

He ministers to a Roman Centurian

He ministers to slaves and servants

He embraces lepers

He helps the ‘demon possessed’

So why do we need inclusive church? Why do we have to argue for what many of us see as the bleedin‘ obvious? Because the Church, the institution that hands these stories down, has so often got it wrong.

The church’s mission is to bring people closer to God. But all too often we see ourselves as ‘gatekeepers’ and ‘guardians’ who keep certain individuals out, rather than the prophets and priests that bring Christ out to everyone.

When I was training at Ripon College Cuddesdon we were told that he motto of the college used to be “guard he deposit” – but the motto had fallen from use, and the only place the archivist could find it inscribed was on an old college bed pan. (Don’t think about that too much!).

But our job is not to guard, but to proclaim. This lager mentality, of circling the wagons, and refusing to engage with the best of secular thinking, is what allows outdated prejudices to flourish, and could kill the church…

Inclusion is the Gospel. The Good news is that every one of us is invited to live in God’s kingdom.

Jesus said: “Come onto me all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus did not say “Come onto me you heterosexual people (and men only if you are interested in the episcopate…)”

Yet so often the Church of England has become a straight, white gentleman’s club.

This does involve a change in our thinking, because the Church, for most of its history, has condemned homosexuality, and denied women leadership roles. We can argue that the church tradition has not been quite as uniformly sexist and homophobic as most people imagine, but we could not say the church has ‘led the way’ in these issues.

The Church has a long tradition of homophobia, just like it has a long tradition of anti-semitism. I think if we want to see how the church can turn around, a good example is how we have changed is the Christian approach to slavery.

For most of the Church’s history it accepted slavery. The Bible allows slavery – we must be fair to our slaves, says Scripture, but slavery is explicitly allowed.

“Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilisation, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.”So said Jefferson Davis, President, Confederate States of America

But the Church was able to see beyond the letter of Scripture to the spirit…

The spirit that showed that all people are created in God’s image, that human life is of infinite value, and taking that to its logical conclusion, slavery, buying and selling God’s children, is an affront too their creator. And now no sane Christian would see slavery as anything other than an evil, a grave sin…

Equality on the basis of gender and sexuality is legally enshrined – the Church’s position on this looks like we are still accepting slavery. At best we look laughably out of date, at worst we are seen as a force for evil…

Homophobia is still out there in society- but so is racism, and just like racism, it is seen as a moral evil. Except in the Church!

This argument is long won. What Inclusive Church is campaigning for is not simply inclusion, it is the future of the church. Holding homophobic views is is not just toxic to our common life, it is toxic to the survival of the institution (it is toxic publicity). To the general public not have women or gay bishops is no different to refusing to have black bishops. And if I am honest I think the comparison is a good one…

A Bible story to help us see how to deal with this: The Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13):

24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

At first I used this passage to argue that we should not try and remove gay and lesbian clergy from ministry or hinder their progression to high office in the Church. But no, this parable is the one I tell myself to check my rage against the homophobia and prejudice I see in the Church, from the House of Bishops and many others… I can’t understand how some prejudiced attitudes could be described as ‘Christian’ or how exclusive practices could have anything to do with following Christ. But we let God be the judge.

38 Now as Jesus and his disciples went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ 41 But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

The story of Mary and Martha is a story for our time. Martha is highly motivated. Jesus is coming – the house must be tidy and clean, the silver service has to be buffed up, the butter-roasted guinea fowl needs preparing, a suitable desert wine must be chosen to go with the Chocolate and chilli pudding with coconut sorbet.

Maybe not quite how it was – but you get the idea of a lot of effort going into hosting by Martha, in contrast to Mary sitting down to relax with Jesus.

Our culture values effort hard work above almost all else. I think we perhaps value that false God of success most of all, but I believe that the harder people work the more valuable they are seen to be. Martha has a lot to do, she wants to please Jesus by getting all the important jobs done. Her efforts seem highly commendable. Most, if not all, of us gathered here this morning would do the same.

Jesus attitude to Mary and Martha must always come as a shock to us busy Christians. Mary gains her Lord’s approval by just siting and listening.

Although we must not be too hard on poor Martha, we need to see this story in context. Last week we heard the passage immediately before this one: the story of the Good Samaritan. In that story the Priest and the Levite are holy and spiritual, but they walk on by on the other side of the road; the Samaritan, who was religiously in error, a heretic in the eyes of Jesus and his disciples, the Samaritan does the right thing before God by caring for the wounded man by the road side.

We need to see the Good Samaritan and this passage as part of the same story, as creating a bigger picture. Jesus does not say it is all about work, nor does he say it is all about ‘spending time with Jesus’ – its both/and not either/or.

If our spirituality is all about sitting at Jesus feet like Mary, we can become self-indulgent, a faith that is no more than our own therapy.

If our spirituality is all about work like Martha, we end up acting out of a sense of duty – and, like Martha, we end up begrudging our labours. We have all been helped by people who end up making us feel much worse – often this is because our helper is suffering from Martha-syndrome.

What we do for the church and for God should not come from a sense of duty, but from a sense of love. If we are working from duty we may need to take a step back and spend some time, like Mary, sitting with Jesus (metaphorically) to try and remember why we are here…

Trying to get the balance as a church and as individuals is not as easy as it sounds. It requires life-long commitment, self-examination and effort.

As a church we have been doing some self-examination, starting at our Annual Meeting and carrying on through Margaret’s list of priorities that many of you circled.

In order to carry forward these priorities we all need to play a part. Studies show that between 80 and 90 % of people who come to a service for the first time do so because someone personally invited them.

I think we are not very good at this and we are missing out because as well-meaning liberals we don’t like to ‘evangelise’ we don’t believe that our faith makes us better than anyone else, so we don’t like to be holier-than-thou.

But the simple truth is that unless liberal Christians are prepared to tell people that our faith gives us life / inspiration / strength / joy (whatever it is that our faith gives us) then all the outreach will be left to the crazy fundamentalists.

As a church we are small, and that’s OK – it’s easy to get to know everybody and we don’t get lost in the crowd. Except… we do a huge amount in our local community with ESOL and the Wash House and Lewcas (and if you don’t know what these are, come along tomorrow night at 7.30 and you can find out!) but we could do so, so much more with a few more people.

What we have here is good. It’s a good community, doing good things, it is simply selfish not to share it with our neighbours and friends.

In September we will be setting up a group to put our priorities for outreach into action. We are looking for volunteers… It’s not simply yet another committee it will not be a ‘talking shop’ but a group of people prepared to roll up their metaphorical sleeves. For example be on a rota to look after newcomers (and oldcomers) if they are on their own at coffee time after church or help them with the vast piles of hymn books and sheets of paper that are sometimes given out… Or to look out for people who have stopped attending – not to chase after them, but to make sure they are alright. Or to produce and deliver a regular newsletter to help our communication… We have had lots more suggestions involving everything from sharing meals to knocking on doors in the Blackheath Hill development, giving our Children birthday cards and baptism anniversary cards…

But for all this to happen we need you.

All this is exciting, and it’s things that we should be doing, its our responsibility as Christians to reach outside our walls…

But we actually have no choice in the matter. All charities are suffering in the current financial crisis, and the church is no different. The diocese has to cut clergy jobs, and it is the smallest churches that will have their clergy cut first!

I don’t want to be alarmist, but our future is not guaranteed.

I believe we can double the number attending this church. We could do that in less than a year if everyone here pulls their weight to the full.

A handful of mostly illiterate disciples turned the world upside down, we could transform ourselves from a small, slightly struggling church into a thriving, bustling church helping our community and providing a place for reflection and faith for everyone.

But there is more to this passage than just this powerful message.

Looking at the Gospels from our early 21st century perspective we loose much of the power of the events and teachings recorded. Mary sits at Jesus feet – ‘so what?’ we may ask. For the story to regain its full impact we must imagine the culture in which Jesus lived and moved. A culture in which Jesus attitude to Mary was revolutionary.

In Jewish culture, the picture of someone sitting at the feet of another and listening would conjure up the image of a student sitting at the feet of a Rabbi to learn the faith. (In much the same way that people sat in rows of desks listening to someone talk at a chalk-board would conjure to us a image of school or college.) But the important thing for us to remember is that in Jesus time a woman could never, ever become the pupil of a Rabbi. The legal status of women in Jesus time was that of property. Either the property of their parents or relatives, or the property of their husband. The Hebrew Scriptures are full of Laws to protect women, especially when widowed (when women had no one to look after, or own, them they were in real trouble). The Scriptures have many Laws to protect orphans, strangers, and widows.

The Law may have offered protection, but the bottom line was that women were property. And it was seen as a waste of time to educate women. A Rabbi would never take a woman pupil. So it would have been a strange sight indeed, to have a woman sitting at the feet of a renowned teacher.

We can imagine Martha’s rage. There is work to be done, and Mary is not only failing to pull her weight, she is behaving extremely foolishly, and by daring to sit like a disciple, she is behaving scandalously.

Martha is rushing around trying to make this visit as great an occasion as possible, and Mary is being outrageous. She has ideas above her station.

Do we dare to confound expectation and be daring for our faith?

That is our challenge, to transform our lives and our church and our community by being prepared to learn from Jesus and then to act.